Shapespark releases

Hi @wojtek
That’s an automatic process?
If not, how it works?

Hi @wojtek
That’s an automatic process?
If not, how it works?

This is an automatic process.

Shapespark 2.5.2 has just been rolled out:

  • Stereo panorama. The screenshot function now allows to generate stereoscopic 360 panoramas in addition to regular flat panoramas.
  • Allow to crop the minimap to an area relevant for the scene visitor. This allows the minimap to focus on the interior and ignore the exterior objects.
  • Allow to copy color from a scene element in the color picker. The color is copied between the same scene element types: light color picker allows to copy color from another light, material color picker allows to copy color from another material, and trigger color picker from another trigger.
  • Revit exporter improvements:
    • Support for Revit model groups. A model group is exported as a hierarchical Shapespark object: the group becomes a parent object and group elements become the object’s children.
    • Support for Revit 2023.
  • Make the camera auto-climb speed adapt to the horizontal camera speed. This prevents the auto-climb function from walking into a wall on a steep staircase.
  • Replace Noto Sans font with Open Sans in the viewer and editor UI. Include the Vietnamese character subset in the font.
  • Fix number input controls in the editor to allow entering negative values from the keyboard.
  • Allow to configure the object rotation speed with greater precision (0.001 revolutions per second).
  • Fix extension configuration issues when trigger properties were changed while the trigger position was not set yet. Such issues led to scene corruption if the scene with broken extension configuration was saved.
  • Fix load error when a scene is opened in an Android app which has a built-in browser, for example: Facebook Messenger or WeChat.
2 Likes

hi, where is the stereo panorama/ screen shot function?

You need to press a p key in the Shapespark editor and set mode to 360 stereo panorama:

image

Shapespark 2.5.3 is out with the following changes:

  • Multi-material edition. The Material tab now allows to select multiple materials and edit properties of all the selected materials at once.
  • Revit exporter improvements and fixes:
    • Strip numbers that Revit adds automatically to linked model names. Now, if a model is linked a few times in a project, all links use the same name in Shapespark.
    • Fix an imported CAD model being rendered black when the Mirror transformation is used on the model.
    • Fix failing export if a Revit project contains a model group without any exportable elements.
  • Use WebGL2 on iOS devices. Viewer on iOS device can now leverage centroid sampling to reduce lightmap aliasing artifacts. WebGL2 had already been used by other platforms.
  • Fix double-clicking in the editor viewport not navigating to the clicked point. The double-click navigation was broken in the previous release.
  • Expose global variables corresponding to URL hash viewer options. The global variables can be modified from custom JavasScript code (for example placed in a body-end.html):
    • WALK.FLIP_MOUSE corresponds to #flipmouse,
    • WALK.AUTO_PLAY corresponds to #autoplay,
    • WALK.HIDE_PLAY corresponds to #hideplay,
    • WALK.SHOW_HELP_ON_LOAD corresponds to #help,
    • WALK.GAZE_IN_POINTER_LOCK corresponds to #gazeinpointerlock,
    • WALK.NO_GAZE_TELEPORT corresponds to #nogazeteleport,
    • WALK.VR_LO corresponds to #vrlo,
    • WALK.VR_HI corresponds to #vrhi,
    • WALK.MOBILE_HI corresponds to #mobilehi.
4 Likes

We’ve just released Shapespark 2.6 with the following changes:

  • Cloud editor (beta). You can now edit and bake scenes directly in the cloud, by using the cloud version of the Shapespark editor. More details can be found in the announcement.
  • Support for 3ds Max 2023.
  • Automatic camera path calculation to avoid passing through obstacles when switching between views and navigating with the minimap. The feature is enabled by default for new scenes, and for existing scenes enable it with the Auto path option in the Camera tab.
  • Material UV transformation. Allow to configure UV scale and offset for a material to adjust the UV mapping.
  • The Lights and Objects tabs now allow you to select multiple items and edit properties of all the selected items at once. The Materials tab already had support for multi-edition, but this version enhances the feature by making multiple materials selectable also by clicking in the editor viewport.
  • Minimap improvements and fixes:
    • Allow to set model rotation in the minimap.
    • Anti-alias the minimap image.
  • Allow to set the minimum and maximum camera distance for orbit and top views.
  • Add fixed camera height mode that maintains constant height above objects with Walk on option enabled. The Camera height option becomes available in the Camera tab after enabling Auto climb .
  • Allow to copy text color between anchors in the color picker.
  • Allow to automatically rewind Audio extension or video texture tracks each time the track is played.
  • Allow to share audio track together with the screen track during a 3D meeting screen sharing. The feature is supported only in the Chrome browser.
  • Show Meeting projection screen trigger also in the editor to simplify the trigger positioning.
  • Fix material picker texture application issue in the editor for repeating textures.
  • Fix material picker 3D meeting state synchronization issue that led to meeting interruptions.
  • Fix light markers flickering in the scene editor on certain platforms.
  • Viewer API improvements:
    • Allow to enable/disable minimap.
    • Allow to register multiple listeners by Viewer.onNodeTypeClicked .
5 Likes

Outstanding update!
I haven’t had a chance to review all the features, but UV transformation and Automatic camera path calculation are super useful.
Keep up the good work!

3 Likes

Hi @wojtek ,

I am not getting the prompt to update my version to this latest release. Is there any way to force update the desktop app?

Thanks.

@nishantambekar, your account had particular beta version assigned. Please restart Shapespark one more time - it should update to 2.6.0 now.

1 Like

Shapespark 2.6.1 is out with the following changes:

  • Improvements for troubleshooting meeting issues:
    • Connection quality indicator. The meeting control panel now includes a three-level quality indicator showing the current quality of the meeting connection.
    • Meeting connection preflight test. The viewer performs a short connection tests before the participant joins the meeting to detect critical connection issues, for example a firewall blocking the connection.
  • Exclusive option for audio/video-related extensions. The Audio, VideoTextureControl and VideoStream extension have a new option Exclusive that allows only one exclusive extension to be playing at a given moment. If an exclusive extension is playing while the visitor clicks a trigger of another exclusive extension, the playing one is paused.
  • Look around smoothing for walk views controlled with a mouse or touchscren.
  • Several fixes and improvements to automatic camera path computation, including:
    • Improve path precision when there are large non-colliding background objects in the scene, for example a custom sky sphere or planes with 2D images of the surrounding.
    • Fix teleport executed through the viewer API not being instant for maxTime = 0.
  • Fix cutout textures not being detected when imported in the scene editor. This led to inconsistent texture look between the edit and view modes.
  • Fix type of imported lights being impossible to change because of the linked property :link: not reacting to clicks.
  • Fix performance problems in scenes where visibility of large hierarchies of objects was controlled by the Switch objects extension.
  • Fix desktop application not remembering the folder of the last selected file for model or texture import. The issue occured only on some systems where Shapespark was installed long-time ago.
  • Fix inconsistent font use in the desktop application.
2 Likes

We’ve just rolled out Shapespark 2.6.2 - a bugfix release with the following changes:

  • Make the SketchUp exporter include light roll (rotation around the lighting direction). This enables adjusting ligjt roll in SketchUp for lights that are later changed into non-axially symmetric in Shapespark, for example: an area light, or a point light with an IES profile.
  • Fix looking around using keyboard that was broken in the previous release.
2 Likes

Shapespark 2.7.0 is out with the following changes:

  • Improved ambient occlusion. Ambient occlusion is now a separate feature from ambient light, and is applied to the total light a surface receives, not only to the ambient part of the light, which makes the effect much more visible. Furthermore, the intensity of ambient occlusion can be controlled with the Intensity setting.
  • Fog. The Sky tab has new settings allowing to enable fog effect in the scene and control the fog color, density and distance from the camera.
  • Protected scenes. An uploaded scene can now be made protected, in which case Shapespark generates a secret that must be included in the scene URL for the scene to be opened. Knowing a scene name or having a public scene URL is insufficient to open a protected scene.
  • Custom icons on extension triggers. Trigger configuration now offers the possibility to upload a custom icon in addition to selecting one from the pre-defined list.
  • Interaction prompt. The prompt is an animated banner shown after the scene has been loaded to indicate that the scene is interactive. It can be enabled in the Viewer tab.
  • Video meeting improvements:
    • Custom avatars in 3D meetings. Such avatars can be configured in collaboration with the Shapespark team and are available only in the Premium plan. More details can be found in the announcement.
    • Synchronize scene changes made with the Switch objects extension between meeting participants.
    • Use Simulcast technique to adapt video resolution to the participants’ internet connection bandwidth.
    • Limit the size of the participant list and make it scrollable to make the user interface less crowded on small screens.
  • Allow to disable panning in the orbit mode. The Orbit mode settings now include a checkbox for this.
  • Exporters’ improvements fixes:
    • Export SketchUp group name as Shapespark object type name.
    • Export SketchUp component instance name in addition to component definition name. The Shapespark object type name is now created from joining the two names.
    • Prevent light names conflicts when Shapespark lights are copied between SketchUp models.
    • Fix removing a material map in 3ds Max not being applied to a Shapespark scene on scene update.
  • Make video textures added in the editor tile if they are of power-of-two dimensions.
  • Block exporting a scene from SketchUp, Revit or 3ds Max exporter if there is already some operation, eg. bake, in progres for the scene. This prevents simultaneous scene modifications that could potentially lead to scene corruption.
  • Add viewer API functions for VR mode management:
    • Viewer.vrEnabled - checks if the VR mode is enabled,
    • Viewer.enableVr - enables the VR mode,
    • Viewer.disableVr - disables the VR mode.
  • Cloud editor leaves beta.
4 Likes

Wow… You are the best!

2 Likes

Thank you very much for your efforts, Shapespark team!

I have 1 question about the 3D meeting avatar.

Is the custom avatar feature applied to each scene or each account?

Hi @Cob_KYU !

Currently custom avatars are applied to all meetings within single account.

We’ve just rolled out Shapespark 2.8.0 with the following list of changes:

  • Grass material: new material type that gives an authentic grass appearance.
  • PBR specular reflections: improve rendering specular reflections by applying Physically-Based Rendering interpretation of roughness and metallic settings. Now, these settings impact in Shapespark should be more consistent with analogous settings in other 3D tools.
  • Tone mapping and contrast presets: the Camera tab now offers a few tone mapping and contrast presets, providing better control over the tonal range of the scene.
  • Color mapping: the Camera tab also offers a list of predefined color maps that users can choose from, for example: cool, sepia or grayscale, to give the scene a particular tone.
  • Scene size indicators with warnings if the scene is likely too large for lower end devices. The indicators are available in the Objects tab.
  • Make setting up sun position in the Lights tab easier by displaying the sun direction as an arrow pointed to the center of the scene.
  • Make the default sun color more warm and the default sky color more cool to improve the natural lighting realism.
  • Precise setting of the view position: the camera position can be now adjusted in the View tab with numeric input fields.
  • Display warning about materials that are used by an extension but that are no longer present in the scene.
  • Improve meeting connection preflight test to detect another type of critical connection issues.
  • Support for Revit 2024.
  • Support for 3ds Max 2024.
  • Fix the issue of MP4 video textures not playing on iOS 16, which caused scene loading to never finish.
  • Fix ambient occlusion producing too dark edges where surfaces meet.
  • Fix custom trigger images not working for bundled scenes.
  • Fix material picker not opening if it contains a missing material.
  • Fix end of meeting in case of network connection problems to consistently disconnect the participant from all sides of the meeting.
  • Fix 3ds Max exporter removing light IES profiles added in the Shapespark scene editor.
  • Fix the desktop application being blocked for a team member when the member has an own expired subscription.
6 Likes

Nice update! Does the PBR material support normals?

No, as before it supports bump map only.

1 Like

I’m really liking this grass material. Very nice!

4 Likes